The San Francisco 49ers are retaining an important piece of their defensive front. Unrestricted free agent defensive tackle DJ Jones will return to the club on a one-year deal according to NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport.
Jones is a key cog in what should be a stout 49ers defensive line. The 2017 sixth-round pick has improved over each of his four years in the league and carved out a role as a full time starter in 2019. He’s started all 25 games he’s played the last two years with 5.0 sacks.
Replacing Jones wouldn’t have been easy for the 49ers since he’s shown some explosiveness as a pass rusher. They would’ve had to likely use a fairly early draft pick if they were planning on replacing his snaps externally.
Ultimately though San Francisco was able to bring him back to the Bay Area where he figures to slot in as the starting nose tackle on a defensive line that’ll need to be very good again for the team to make a postseason run.
